The present invention relates to graphical representations of system components and, in particular, to displaying graphical representations that illustrate relative and absolute physical locations of disk memory system components located in a room.
Computer systems can comprise a substantial number of components, together with the equipment that supports and/or interfaces with such components. These can include memory storage devices, controllers, equipment racks, component or module trays, power supplies, interface devices, software, hardware connectors and cabling or wiring. A RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) is comprised of numerous such components. A RAID system has a large number of disk drives and controllers that have supervisory control over the disk drives and other environmental components. These components, as well as other RAID system components, are commonly supported in one or more racks having slots and/or subslots into which the system components are inserted. Since RAID system components can be arranged differently when they are installed at particular user sites, each physical arrangement or placement of these system components may be different for each such site. In that regard, the racks or other RAID system support structures are housed in parts of one or more selected rooms in the building having the RAID system. The system components are typically then positioned in such racks according to a suitable arrangement. In the case of any given RAID system, it is commonplace to use a host machine that has overall control of read/write operations conducted by the RAID system. However, the host machine may not be aware of the physical locations of all RAID system components. If an operator of the RAID system wants to access a particular RAID system component, the operator must determine its physical location among the large number of RAID system components. The operator might want to replace or move a particular system component in the RAID system and must know its location in order to perform the task. It is known to store and display component lists for RAID systems. RAID systems also currently have the capability of providing information regarding the identification and location of some components in the system, such as relative locations of disk drives in a drive tray. Such available information does not clearly and immediately provide the user with the relative and absolute physical locations of all RAID system components.
It would be advantageous, therefore, to be able to graphically illustrate relative and absolute physical locations of RAID system components so that an operator could more easily find a particular component or components among a substantial number thereof.
In accordance with the present invention, method and system are provided that implement a graphical user interface for displaying, on a display screen or monitor of a computer system or user machine, numerous graphical representations of actual relative and absolute physical locations of system components, preferably RAID system components. When viewed on the display screen, the operator can ascertain the location of one or more selected PAID system components, e.g., identify its location in order to readily find and access the actual system component in the room having numerous system components. Importantly, each graphical representation can be updated when a change occurs in its corresponding physical RAID system component. Depending on the type of system component, some updating can be accomplished substantially automatically without user operations or interventions. Other RAID system components require user control in order to accomplish the updating. Updating can also include providing status information for one or more RAID system components.
The graphical representations include geometric designs that schematically or pictorially represent the actual system components. For example, a rack for holding system components or modules is illustrated as a box-like unit having separated compartments or slots into which smaller quadrilateral-shaped items representative of disk drives and disk controllers are positioned. The graphical representations are indicative of a variety of system components such as the system racks, disk drives, storage array controllers, disk trays, controller trays, power supplies, fans, interface units, hardware connectors, cabling and/or wiring. System components can also encompass or include combinations of other system components, such as a combination of a controller and a controller tray, which combination could also be labeled a controller module. The user or operator of the computer system is able to select from among such numerous graphical representations and combine them on the display screen to graphically represent the actual arrangement of the system components in a room of a building or other physical area. At least some of the resulting graphical representations can include indicators or other indicia that convey the status information associated with the corresponding one or more of the actual system components. Such status information can include, for example, whether power is being applied to that system component and/or whether or not that system component has experienced one or more predetermined faults.
The computer system of the present invention is used in processing, displaying and otherwise controlling operations related to such graphical representations. In one embodiment, a number of computer systems are employed. The computer system typically comprises computer hardware such as one or more processors, the monitor having the display screen, program memory and storage memory (e.g. hard disk drive storage memory) for storing data indicative of the numerous graphical representations and input devices including a keyboard and mouse. The geometric shapes, which represent one or more system components or parts of a system component, are built or developed and stored in the storage memory in a readily accessible manner. Such graphical representations can be defined as including an object form that represents a system component or part thereof and/or text that may, but need not, accompany the object form. The text might be useful in further defining the particular component pictorially illustrated by the object form, such as a certain disk controller that differentiates it from other disk controllers.
The computer system(s) can operably communicate with one or more of the RAID memory systems. Each, or all of such, RAID system(s) may be conveniently further defined as including a number of RAID subsystems, for example, when illustrating or otherwise defining their locations in different rooms or different parts of the same room. One or more host systems is typically in communication with the RAID memory system(s). Such a host system may be involved in controlling read/write operations of the data or other information relative to, for example, a particular one or more of the RAID systems. In one embodiment, one or more of such host systems are able to also directly communicate with the computer system.
With respect to Utilizing the numerous graphical representations, in one embodiment, the RAID system is set-up or configured in one or more rooms and in one or more parts of the same room. That is, the RAID system components are shipped from the manufacturing location or other site to the designated user geographical site. The user can then arrange or assemble the system components in accordance with a desired or predetermined physical configuration in which each system component has a relative location to the other system components, as well as an absolute physical location in a particular part of a room or other area. The user also has the computer system with memory that stores the software package or software modules required for establishing the graphical user interface for utilizing the numerous graphical representations of system components. That is, the software includes the numerous graphical representations in object form (geometric shape) and/or object form with text. Each of these is stored at a known memory location. The operator can then select the appropriate graphical representations of the actual system components for the particular RAID system. The selection ultimately results in graphical representations of the system components being illustrated on the display screen. These can be combined with each other so that the resulting illustration corresponds to the actual locations of the system components relative to each other. By way of example, system components that are modules or combinations of system components are displayed in a RAID support structure, such as a rack, in accordance with their actual arrangement relative to each other. The resulting combination of display system components can also be represented so that they correspond to the actual absolute locations that the system components have in a rack, or even in a room or area of the building. Such can be accomplished by illustrating indicia representative of parts or sections of a room and causing the system components to be displayed on the display screen in those room areas that correspond to the actual physical locations of such system components. Once the graphical representations are properly arranged to be indicative of actual relative and absolute physical locations of system components, they can be stored for later retrieval and usage.
When it is useful or desired to obtain information related to the RAID system(s), the graphical representations of the particular RAID system, including providing a display of their relative and absolute physical locations, together with status information, can be provided. Hence, when necessary or as part of a normal procedure, the operator can check one or more system components. Relatedly, when desired or necessary to find and access a particular system component, using the illustration on the display screen for any such system component, the operator can determine its relative and absolute physical location. Upon obtaining this information, the operator can then physically access the actual system component based on the correspondence between its actual location and that illustrated on the display screen. This is beneficial, for example, in immediately finding and removing and/or replacing or shifting any such system component. When such a change is made to an actual system component, the graphical representation thereof is updated. By way of example, an actual first system component may be removed and replaced by an actual second system component. In such a case, assuming a difference in their graphical representations, the graphical representation of the second system component now occupies the location, in the combination of graphical representations, formerly occupied by the graphical representation of the first system component. Such a graphical representation change manifests itself in one or both of a graphic change and a text change. As a further example, a particular system component might be added to a combination of previously established or arranged system components. This new system component has its own graphical representation and it is added to the previously configured combination of graphical representations.
With respect to these changes to previously devised combinations of graphical representations, depending upon the type of system component, the update to the combinations of graphical representations may be accomplished either under system control (automatic update) or user/operator control (manual update). In the case of moving one disk drive from a drive tray and replacing it with another disk drive, the update to the graphical representation can occur automatically. A storage controller of the RAID memory system can signal the computer system with information related to this particular change, since the storage controller is able to keep track of identities and relative locations of disk drives. Since the drive tray was not changed, only a disk drive therein was removed and replaced, the storage controller can provide this information to the computer system to effect an automatic update of any appropriate change in the graphical representation, such as an identification of the replacement drive. In the example in which a new system component is added, if it were a drive tray and disk drives therein, the storage controller prompts or otherwise notifies the computer system that such a system component was added. However, no indication or notification is provided as to where this module (combination of drive tray and disk drives) was added. Consequently, no automatic update of the combination of graphical representations is available for this new drive tray and disk drives. Nonetheless, based on the prompt received by the computer system, the user can incorporate this change based on the user""s knowledge of where the corresponding actual drive module was located, namely, both its absolute position and its position relative to other system components. Accordingly, the RAID memory system, such as one or more storage controllers thereof, can maintain or store the updated identifications and locations of actual system components and provide a list or information related to the current system components to the computer system. The computer system, including when under control by an operator or user, can then decide what to do with such current or updated information. The RAID memory system may be utilized by one or more host machines or systems. The storage controller(s) thereof can function as a central site or location for such available configuration information relative to a plurality of these host systems. Consequently, once a list of system components is available, it can be accessed by a number of different systems.
Although it is anticipated that a primary benefit of the present invention is to graphically represent system components after the actual relative and absolute physical locations have been determined, it is anticipated that the present invention could be used to identify locations for the system components before they are configured relative to each other. In this way, the graphical representations of their locations are first provided and then the actual physical locations are established based on such graphical representations. In one embodiment, a default combination of graphical representations can be utilized for a predetermined memory system, such as a particular RAID system.
Based on the foregoing summary, a number of benefits of the present invention are readily discerned. Method and system are provided to graphically represent relative and absolute physical locations of system components, particularly RAID system components. Graphical representations of actual RAID system physical configurations can be graphically built by the operator after installation. Alternatively, the actual system components can be physically arranged based on a previously developed combination of graphical representations thereof. Once established and stored in memory, the combination of graphical representations indicative of actual relative and absolute physical locations of the system components can be used in order to check status of system components, identify their locations, access one or more of such system components based on determining where each is located using such graphical representations, remove, replace, shift and/or add actual system components, as well as update the graphical representations to reflect whatever modification was made either under operator control or system control.
Additional advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following discussion, particularly when taken together with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating major apparatuses of the present invention;
FIG. 2 schematically illustrates on a display screen graphical representations of subsystems based on their actual absolute locations in a room;
FIG. 3 schematically illustrates on the display screen selected system components of a subsystem of FIG. 2 that are provided separately on a display screen for desired arrangement relative to each other;
FIG. 4 schematically illustrates on the display screen the system components of FIG. 3 that have been combined based on the relative physical locations of actual corresponding system components.
FIG. 5 schematically illustrates on a display screen graphical representations of system components that have been changed over those illustrated in FIG. 4; and
FIG. 6 is an enlarged, fragmentary schematical illustration of a graphical representation of a system component that provides status information for that system component.